Develop content that resonates with your audience. Share stories, updates, and visuals that highlight your mission and impact. Consistent, high-quality content will keep your audience engaged and informed.

Identify Your Goals:

Social Media can be overwhelming.  There are so many options to choose from.  Knowing what you want ahead of time is an important step to consider before jumping into things.

Some of the key goals that I recommend to just about everyone are: raising awareness, engaging the community, and calling to action (i.e. fundraising, volunteer opportunities, etc.).

Other question you could ask yourself before picking your social media strategies could include:

• • Do you want to highlight events?
  • Do you want to tell a lot of relatable stories?
  • Who is your target audience?
  • Do you have videos you want to share?

Choose The Right Platform:

The great thing about social media platforms is that most of the groundwork has already been laid out for you.  Pretty much every platform has some similarities.  Profiles are standardized, and unless you plan on getting into the real nitty gritty of your chosen platform(s) you pretty much follow their setup steps and get right to creating content.  Platform growth is a key metric for counting your success on social media.  Every platform counts your followers and gives you tools to grow your audience.

Picking a social media that aligns to your needs may seem obvious but there's a few caveats to finding one that suits you.  If you're sharing strategy revolves around videos, than maybe YouTube, Vimeo, or another video platform would be a strong contender for you.  If you've got lots of pictures to share than Instagram could be a great option.  These are some practical choices that may fit your criteria for sharing content but there are a few other things to consider.

Your audience that you're trying to reach out to and engage with probably already has a preferred platform.  Do some research to find out where your people already are.  there's a bunch of resources that can tell you where any number of groups hangs out online, from age, gender or race, to favorite sports and hobbies.  A quick tip I've learned is to find someone already doing what you're doing and look at where they're most active.  You'll find your audience is likely in the same general circle.

As a busy person myself, I completely understand that you have more to do than time to do it.  Picking 1 or 2 platforms and focusing in on them is going to be much more effective than picking all of them and trying to shotgun blast everything all at once.  There are a few ways to use the same picture, message, or video on several of the same platform, but as your audience grows, unifying them in one space will build a better community than having a bunch of different pockets of communities in different areas online.

Create Engaging Content:

Remember just a minute ago when I said you don't have enough time to do everything? I still stand by that.  When it comes to actually creating content, remember that your readers/viewers, specifically in the non-profit world, want to see recent events of people making change.  One thing that was always drilled into me in my early days of working on projects is smiles.  People like smiling people.  It shows that something good is going on.

Collecting images and videos and stories can be a daunting process, and you may not always have that content to share every week.  That's okay! Another tip is that if you have a big event, don't share everything from that event all at once (internet readers don't have that attention span anyway) break it down into smaller segments and plan it out across several weeks.  Some platforms let you schedule posts ahead of time, so you can add all the details while the embers are hot, figuratively speaking (unless your organization is focused on blacksmithing or firefighting... then it's literal).  If you have 50 pictures from an event: share 4 at a time and you have content for...  (50 divided by four... multiply by 7 days a week for...) several weeks!

Don't forget the most important part: your people you engage with online are people.  They like to talk and ask questions and share stories of their own.  As you engage your audience and community, remember to do so from their perspective.  Learn from them and share in their moments together as you build up your organization.

And lastly: Don't let social media get in the way of what you do.  If things get out of hand, back off of the online because it really isn't as important as the things you're doing.  Remember: What you're doing is important!

Daniel Thornton | Creative Commons 2.0